TWELVE Bolton factory girls who formed a charity soccer side in 1968, but were not allowed to play on their own factory pitch because of a Football Association rule, eventually got a game, thanks to the Evening News.

The girls - they called themselves the Tornados - worked at Burton's clothing factory off Halliwell Road. And they could not play on the firm's field because of an FA rule which said that any club affiliated to the Lancashire FA - such as the league side run by Burton's men - must not help any team which was not affiliated.

That included the girls using the Burton's pitch. But after a story in the newspaper, Bolton Wanderers' talent scout Neville Mitchell, a Burnley licensee, offered to arrange a game between the Bolton girls and a girls' side from his pub, the White Lion. The picture shows 10 of the Bolton girls.